Edson Velandia “El Karateca”

Edson Velandia is perhaps one of the best lyricists we have in Colombia, his capacity transcends the virtuosity of the guitar or the poetics of his lyrics.

It is much more than that, it is the creativity at the service of a chronicler, comedian and artist who – in his ironic and sarcastic way – lets us see their realities drenched in satire and narrated perfectly.

In this album called “El Karateca”, he speaks of the love, the sex, the death, the drama and the violence.

Kombilesa Mi “Así es Palenque”

This is the most folk version of hip hop. Far from DJs, computers and beats, Kombilesa Mi convert traditional instruments like tamboras and maracas to create the bases of their songs that are sung in Spanish and Palenquero, their native language.

This is a new expression of the history of its people immortalized not only in the traditional rhythms, but in something more contemporary.

Las Hermanas “Nadie jamás ha visto una calavera triste”

To listen to Las Hermanas, the project of beats and sampling of the visual artist Diego Cuellar, is somehow to detach from the world and enter a parallel universe of experimental sounds that can be a hip hop or an ambient of ultratumba.

On “Nadie jamás ha visto una calavera triste”, dark rhythms are created and constantly deconstructed to create a dark aura. If there was a party after death, it would sound like this.

Salsangroove “Salsangroove”

Machine and drum. Beats and descarga latina. Scratch and pregoneo. SalsanGroove is more than a simple fusion, it is a fluid dialogue, a complicity between the furious of the traditional salsa and the avant-garde of the electronic sounds.

It is, in the last, a fantastic and even visionary union, a meeting point between the tradition of the unrestrained Latin rhythm, with the current and growing current of electronic music. The salsa of the future is today.

Zof Ziro “La Bomba de Zirozhima”

This is neither gangster, or conscience rap, it is the beating of a teenager from Envigado who got together with some of the most daring beatmakers in the area like Arkeologo or Crudo Means Raw and MCs like Mañas Ru Fino and N.Hardem to join this bomb.

“La Bomba de Zirozhima” is loaded with bitter truths, contemplative themes and sagacious rhymes, which accompany the classic rap bases, with the most experimental egotrip.